In Harm s Way (1965)

April 7, 1965

John Wayne Starred in Preminger Film

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Published: April 7, 1965

YOU can't kill John Wayne. That's the message—the only message—that comes through loud and clear in Otto Preminger's big war film, "In Harm's Way," which opened last night at the DeMille. It also opens today for a simultaneous engagement at the Coronet.

No matter how much the enemy takes deadly aim at Mr. Wayne (and he seems to be running in harm's way most of the time in this film) and no matter how rough his superiors in the United States Navy are on him, he comes through alive and a hero, minus only one leg. But he picks up a loving woman, a tough Navy nurse, to compensate.

This is a slick and shallow picture that Mr. Preminger puts forth here, a straight, cliché-crowded melodrama of naval action in the Pacific in World War II, plus a good deal of cagy politicking and professional back-stabbing among the "brass." And the only character who finally emerges with any firmness and credibility is the admiral in command of the Pacific theater, who is played by Henry Fonda.

At least, Mr. Fonda makes this admiral a firm, crisp, decisive type. He seems more interested in naval operations than in promoting a personality. This is refreshing and convincing in a film that is virtually awash with flimsy and flamboyant fellows with all the tricks of the trade of Hollywood.

At the top of the lot is this captain (later admiral) whom John Wayne plays and whom we follow from the blow-up of Pearl Harbor to a big, smashing island-hopping battle toward the end of the war.

He swings through the grim humiliation of being temporarily beached after the nightmare of Pearl Harbor to the dubious honor of being in command of Operation Skyhook, the island-hopping task, with precisely the same bristling valor his Davy Crockett displayed at the Alamo. And when he rides to magnificent victory in a blazing sea battle at the end, he could just as well be leading the Seventh Cavalry as a fleet of battleships. Mr. Wayne's characterization is skin-deep. Fortunately, his skin is thick.

As His executive officer and sidekick. Kirk Douglas is awfully shallow, too—just a noisy and naughty tin-can sailor who comes to shameful but sacrificial end. His shame is that he rapes the fianée of his captain's runny-nosed son, an act that compels the young woman — a Navy nurse — to commit suicide. So, of course, this means that Mr. Douglas, in order to satisfy the code, both Navy and Production, has to get himself killed on a suicidal reconnaissance run.

What isn't explained is why this fellow suddenly rapes the virginal nurse, played by the blonde Jill Haworth. Wendell Mayes, who wrote the script from the stalwart novel of James Bassett, has neglected to motivate that, except by the vaguest implication, as he has failed to motivate lots of things. One of our wits has suggested that maybe it's simply because the suspiciously complaisant Miss Haworth is under contract to Mr. Preminger.

Anyhow, that's the way things happen in this romantic, melodramatic film, which is loaded with naval engagements and incidental characters. Mr. Preminger is nothing if not generous. He gives you a lot of bang for a buck. He simply neglects to make it have the hard, crushing sound and feel of truth.

Patricia Neal is weary and wistful as the nurse who attends Mr. Wayne, Tom Tryon and Paula Prentiss are sentimental as a Navy husband and wife, Brandon De Wilde is crisp and cocky as Mr. Wayne's Ivy League son, Burgess Meredith is quite the dry old codger as an intelligence officer, Patrick O'Neil is a stinker as a political type, and Dana Andrews, Franchot Tone and several others turn up as assorted brass.

But they, like Mr. Wayne, are only actors in a big, blazing, black-and-white war film. Some suffer normal attrition. But not Mr. Wayne. They can't kill him.